Extra Stuff

Wednesday, 21 February 2018

Is the deadline for getting shot of your old tenners. After that they cease to be legal tender and you'll need to schlep all the way over to the Bank of England to exchange them.

We don't have that problem here in Thailand as old and new currency notes just keep on circulating. I suppose the older style notes just wear out and die/get pulled in by the banks, leaving the fresher, newer notes to take up the slack.

Britons are expected to live an average of two years longer as a result of KFC closing yesterday, according to reports.

The fast-food chain, which serves a mixture of cardboard and sawdust bonded together with the stuff that makes fatbergs in the sewers in a top-secret mix of herbs and spices, made the contribution to the health of the nation after claiming to have run out of chicken.

By 10am yesterday, health officials noted that hospital admissions in some part of the country had halved, and obesity rates were falling at an ‘incredible pace’.

We did some old school detective shows yesterday, starting with Murder She Wrote. Next we watched Poirot, Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple. With the exception of Jessica Fletcher, which was really quite poor in both plot, acting skills and direction, these programmes really are first class.

Jeremy Brett owns Sherlock, David Suchet is Poirot and while the jury is out on who is the best Marple (Geraldine McEwan or Julie McKenzie both have merit but I still plump for Margaret Rutherford) this is simply delightful TV.

Who need special effects, stunts or a flashy cast when you have classics like these?

Having read yesterday that it was good for one's teeth to brush with a fluoride toothpaste and not rinse your mouth out after you're done brushing (it's OK to spit out the residue but that's it- leave the rest of the paste to coat your teeth), I gave it a go.

Barf.

Not something I enjoyed doing, it felt very unnatural and I still have a most odd feeling and taste in my mouth this morning.

But I will persevere and hope I can get used to the sensation of having toothpaste suds in my gob as I try and get to sleep.

This is becoming quite a regular outing for us and once again we made the most of our shopping trip. Another dozen Xbox games, some very lean beef strips to make the next batch of jerky and a few other bits and pieces.

Not impressed with World First's attempt at repatriating us with our funds. We paid up our monies last Friday and still no sign of our hard earned, five days later.

OK, I know we had a weekend in between (since when do 'pooters get time off) and I know we had to send our payment to their Kiwi office and they in turn had to send the funds to their UK office who had to then send it on to us in Thailand and I know we have vastly differing time zones between all three countries, BUT.

In this day and age of technology, microsecond timing and 24/7 constant gimmie, I think this is poor. They were sure quick enough to grab the moolah off us, yet reciprocation seems to be tediously slow.

After a couple of nights and a rigorous seeing too from Khun Ayr (she can at times demonstrate the touch of an elephant despite being only 26 inches in height), our once leaking bidet hose seems to be water tight.

Wet or Dry

“A dry brush increases friction with the bristles and won’t dilute the fluoride in the toothpaste, while a wet toothbrush adds moisture and, for most people, makes the brushing experience more pleasant,” says Damien Walmsley, a scientific adviser for the British Dental Association. “Whatever your preference, what really matters is that teeth should be brushed twice a day, for at least two minutes, with a fluoride toothpaste, including last thing at night.”

Don’t brush straight after meals or after certain drinks

“If you eat anything with sugar or carbohydrates in it, the enzymes in the mouth create an acid,” says Derek Richards, a consultant in dental public health and the director of the Centre for Evidence-based Dentistry. This can weaken the surface of the teeth. Sugary drinks or fruit juice “will dissolve the very superficial layers of the teeth; if you brush your teeth straight away, you’re going to start brushing that [surface] away. If you want to brush your teeth straight after fruit, wait 10 minutes or rinse out with water and then brush.”

Spit, don’t rinse

“You shouldn’t rinse your mouth out after you’ve cleaned your teeth because that washes away the fluoride that helps harden your teeth,” says Richards. “Most of the real improvement in the reduction of tooth decay since the 1970s is largely down to toothpaste manufacturers and the fluoride they’ve been putting in.”

A knocked-out tooth can be saved

Sometimes. Rinse it and put it back in the socket immediately, then get to a dentist. If you can’t put it back in or can’t face doing that, put it in cow’s milk – not water – while you seek dental attention. “If it’s put in milk within five minutes, the root’s cells can be preserved for up to an hour,” says Monty Duggal, a former head of paediatric dentistry at the University of Leeds.

Don’t get your teeth whitened by a beauty therapist

It is illegal, although some unscrupulous people offer it. It is possible to buy home whitening kits online, which may conrain unsafe levels of hydrogen peroxide and cause burns or tooth loss. As long as it is carried out by a dentist, teeth whitening is considered safe.

In the time that it’s taken you to read this sentence, there’s every chance that angry red-faced man party UKIP will have fired their leader and be on the look-out for literally anyone to have a crack at running the party.

Could it be you? Just answer these simple questions to find out.

Do you have what it takes to lead UKIP?

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We are gradually starting to sort out our nephew's holiday when he visits us in July. As part of the trip we will be taking him and his girlfriend to Cambodia and I have just heard back from the City River Hotel.

They have confirmed they will offer us our usual (rather generous) discount for both rooms. Marvellous.

It is usually my first "go to" (after C & H, of course) but I am finding it more and more disappointing. All I want on the front/first page of the football tab is what all the results were in the Premiership, the full table and which games are coming up on the day. Leave all the rest of the clutter for further down the page.

But instead we get half-baked "headlines", far too many video clips (don't forget, these will not run outside of the UK so a waste of space for ex-pats) and links to minor specialist stories.

I have nowt against the lower leagues, far from it, but I don't want to wade through these articles to simply see what last night's results were. The BBC used to be untouchable in its content and layout, now it's barely an also ran. Very disappointing.

We've concluded viewing some long term TV series we've been following (finally seen all of The Office US, Psychoville and Breaking Bad to name bit a few) and that included series 7 of Frasier.

It's been a bit hit and miss for me as they have resorted to far too much slapstick lampoonery but by far their biggest crime was to introduce Daphne's brother into the show. Odious character aside, WTF did they have to find a guy who's "English" accent is even worse than Dick Van Dyke's piss poor attempt in Mary Poppins?

His bungled efforts make me cringe every time he opens his big fat gob and it is all I can do to leave the room. Hitting the mute button is some small mercy.

If they can pick quality English actors/actresses for roles, why did they have to select this guy for the part? I just don't get it but at least he's not around for the start of series 8.

Watched this classic French film again to cure a massive Changover and what a treat. It is simply one of my favourite films of all time (certainly in the top five) and if you have never seen it, you a really missing out.

Amélie is a story about a girl named Amélie whose childhood was suppressed by her Father's mistaken concerns of a heart defect. With these concerns Amélie gets hardly any real life contact with other people. This leads Amélie to resort to her own fantastical world and dreams of love and beauty. She later on becomes a young woman and moves to the central part of Paris as a waitress. After finding a lost treasure belonging to the former occupant of her apartment, she decides to return it to him. After seeing his reaction and his new found perspective - she decides to devote her life to the people around her. Such as, her father who is obsessed with his garden-gnome, a failed writer, a hypochondriac, a man who stalks his ex girlfriends, the "ghost", a suppressed young soul, the love of her life and a man whose bones are as brittle as glass. But after consuming herself with these escapades - she finds out that she is disregarding her own life and damaging her quest for love. Amélie then discovers she must become more aggressive and take a hold of her life and capture the beauty of love she has always dreamed of.

Instead of doing what we usually do when something goes wrong; chuck cash as the problem, I had another crack at our leaking hose in the bathroom.

A flash of inspiration, some PTFE tape, two new "O" rings and a fresh blood blister has now seen the problem solved. For now at any rate. In the end I attached the new head to the other (new) tube) crimped both ends off with pliers and jammed them on.

Monday, 19 February 2018

Mr Cadbury met Miss Rowntree on a Double Decker. It was After Eight. They got off at Quality Street. He asked her name.'Polo, I'm the one with the hole' she said with a Wispa. 'I'm Marathon, the one with the nuts' he replied. He touched her Creme Eggs and slipped his hand into her Snickers. He fondled her Flap Jacks as she rubbed his Tic Tacs. It was a Fab moment as she screamed in Turkish Delight and he shot his chewy centre. But 3 days later his sherbert dib-dab started to itch. Turns out Miss Rowntree had been with Bertie Bassett and he's got feckin' Allsorts!

One last cross, one last chance for Rochdale to rescue the Wembley dream that had cruelly disappeared when Harry Kane scored an 88th-minute penalty for Tottenham. In it came, Spotland held its breath as it fell at the feet of Steve Davies and the substitute held his nerve to find the bottom corner. League One’s bottom club have their date under the arch after all. It was a fairytale ending, richly deserved and brilliantly executed.

Here was the FA Cup in all its majesty. One of the most financially stretched clubs in England stretched to the limit a team that outplayed Juventus in the Champions League five days earlier. Keith Hill’s side undeniably merited a second bite at their Premier League guests but a replay, one that will take their income from this season’s Cup run beyond £1m, seemed to have been ripped from them when Harrison McGahey tripped Dele Alli and Kane scored on the ground where he made his professional debut in 2011.

But Rochdale would not be denied. They had performed with spirit and no little quality throughout and, when Matthew Done’s cross broke for Davies off the head of Toby Alderweireld, only the most hard-hearted of Spurs supporters could have begrudged the precise finish that followed.

Spotland erupted. Mauricio Pochettino patted the grizzly beard of his Rochdale counterpart Hill and exited down the tunnel. A relaid pitch proved to be the least of the Spurs manager’s concerns at Spotland where he made several changes, summoned both Alli and Kane from the bench, and ended up with an unwanted addition to his already demanding schedule. The replay will support Rochdale’s finances for the next two to three years, said Hill. Performances of this calibre will also assist their fight to avoid relegation to League Two. Hill’s side were exemplary and Pochettino had the good grace to say he was thankful to “still be alive” in the FA Cup.

The tone of an uncomfortable evening in Lancashire for Spurs was set when Alderweireld slipped on the relaid pitch from kick-off. Rochdale were entirely responsible for the troubles of the Premier League visitors, however, not a pitch that had drained £500,000 from a club that can ill-afford such a hit on its resources. Or could not before this Cup run.

Lucas Moura made his first start for Tottenham since his £23m move from Paris Saint-Germain and impressed with his penetrating runs and the cool finish that cancelled out Ian Henderson’s excellent opener. The link-up play between Fernando Llorente and Son Heung-min also tested the Rochdale defence but they were alert to Spurs’ quick intentions and gave their midfield the confidence to play with composure. Gradually, remarkably, Rochdale emerged as the more threatening team in a first half that made a mockery of their lowly league position and the gulf between the two clubs.

Rochdale’s midfield trio of Andrew Cannon, Callum Camps and Mark Kitching were outstanding. Henderson was a 33-year-old dynamo of relentless energy and dangerous movement in attack. The central defence of McGahey, Jimmy McNulty and Ryan Delaney were concentrated and powerful, although a bit too much when McGahey clattered into Harry Winks from behind and somehow escaped a card. They could not contain Spurs entirely – really, how could they? – but the visitors only seriously tested the Rochdale goalkeeper, Josh Lillis, once before the break. Lillis proved equal to Son’s low effort after the striker was put through by Llorente, who side-footed horribly wide when the South Korean returned the favour from the rebound.

The tie was played out amid a wonderful atmosphere that would have intensified earlier had Henderson converted two decent chances before his sixth goal in this season’s FA Cup arrived on the stroke of half-time. His first was placed too close to Spurs’ keeper and captain for the day Michel Vorm after Cannon had wrestled possession from Victor Wanyama in central midfield. His second was sliced across goal when picked out unmarked on the left of the Spurs’ penalty area. His third sight of goal produced a moment that will linger long in Rochdale’s history.

Henderson’s breakthrough encapsulated their first-half performance. It stemmed from a challenge by Camps to deny Moura inside the Rochdale area. In an instant Hill’s team were on the counterattack and Cannon fired the perfect pass behind the visiting defence for the former Norwich City forward, who almost quit the game to study dentistry five years ago, to sidefoot a superb first-time finish into the bottom corner. Spotland shook in celebration.

The Champions League guests were facing an examination of their character as well as their application and, in fairness, they dominated the second half. Moura equalised in style on the hour when Llorente picked out his run into the area and he lifted an exquisite finish over the advancing Lillis for his first Tottenham goal. Wanyama missed a glorious opportunity when he volleyed over from two yards out but his embarrassment appeared to have been spared when Alli made the most of contact with McGahey, although there was contact, and Kane put away the resulting penalty. Rochdale were deflated but then came one final cross.

A few minutes from making the next round, but Rochdale equalised to make it 2 - 2 and earn a rematch at Wembley. I am happy for them as it will bring much needed revenue to the club (financial security for the next three years, apparently) but that's about as far as my generosity stretches. We need to get past them to make progress in the FA Cup.

On our return to T-L we spotted their reduced items section and had a quick nose. It was full of imported goods that tend to be slow movers for the locals but for us expats, it was a treasure trove.

Bargain of the day were Tesco's own cheddar thins (full size) down to half price- about 70 pence a packet. I bought all their stock as I love "mini cheddars" and only get some when we get friends coming to visit.

As we have a tiled floor and a drainage point just by the toilet, it is not the highest priority to cure the leaking hose/head immediately. Clearly the replacement items bought locally at T-L (around £6 - £7) aren't the most professional of items so we shall wait until tomorrow when we're due to visit Mega Bang Na and see what Home Pro can offer.

Karen and Dean joined us for a catch up and a most enjoyable evening was had by all, in between yawns and stretches. The guys also suffer jet lag as they are 6 hours ahead of local time and were in the air for over 12 hours.

We took both new hose and head attachments back to T-L and swapped them for two different models. The first was the worst of the lot but the second gave us hope. A couple of hours later there were tell-tale signs of the head dripping and water on the tiled floor.

Sunday, 18 February 2018

I've given the replacement hose an hour or so and it is still leaking ever so slightly. I could live with that but past experience has shown it will only get worse over time, so if I am taking one back I may as well take both.

Which means we shall have to leave our Blogging there for today. Catch you soon in hopefully drier times.

A 35-year-old woman from Southend in Essex has been describing her shock after she discovered that entering her PIN number in a cash machine backwards while being forced to withdraw money at knifepoint actually does fuck all.

Michelle Garridge told Southend News Network that although she was expecting a triple SWAT stream and the 34th Battalion of the Coldstream Guards to come storming around the corner the moment that she tapped in the last number, the reality was that fuck all happened apart from the cashpoint telling her that she had entered her pin incorrectly.

Ms Garridge added, ‘There was a meme on Facebook, and naturally I assumed that it would be true because it’s was a meme on Facebook. Nobody ever bullshits in those do they?’

‘Thinking about it now actually, it must have been thunderbollocks because some people have PIN numbers like 2332 or 6116.’

‘Come to think of it, people with certain forms of dyslexia would inadvertently summon the LAPD at will every time they withdrew a tenner.’

‘To be fair, I was feeling a little bit tired when I first read it as I had just spent an hour typing a status that said, ‘I hereby declare under paragraph 54 sentence 13 of the Geneva Convention that I do not authorise Facebook to assume copyright on anything that I publish. Do not share this status – you must copy and paste it because law.’

‘I was also entering a competition to win a fully-featured motorhome as the manufacturer had a surplus of 100 units that they couldn’t sell, and I have my fingers crossed about a pair of Virgin Atlantic.. tickets and a holiday at Centar Percs.’

‘I felt like Rumpole Of The Bailey after typing that in so I knew it must have been airtight.’

A police source added, ‘If someone finds that they are unfortunate enough to be caught in this situation, we would suggest repeating the false information to your attacker in full as there is a 90% chance they will suffer an aneurysm due to the sheer fuckwittery of it all.’

Wifey keeps her mobile on all the time, I rarely switch mine on. I get zero spam calls, she gets a number but she has had a persistent caller (ID withheld) from a Thai network over recent days until until yesterday she had had enough and texted back to ask "who are you"? If it was a cold caller they would not pursue as they don't bother with ex-pats.

Turns out it was Khun Alix using his girlfriend's number and he just wanted to let us know he had decided to leave Soi 93 early and had taken out a lease on a small outlet to allow them to start in the healthy smoothie business.

We wish both Khun Alix and Khun Ore the best of luck and hope to see them soon on the other side of the bar. But how thoughtful was that of them to let us know they would no longer be working at the bar? We appreciated it immensely.

Couldn't do much regards obtaining a new tube until Tesco-Lotus opened, which is 06:00 (yip, even in a Sunday) and was off at the crack of dawn. They had several tubes in stock so I bought two of the most expensive ones, with different styles of nozzle (closer inspection revealed it was the bidet hose that had gone).

Got back, fitted the first and it came pissing out from every joint. No amount of tightening could stop the leaks so tried the second. This seems a little better but there are still obvious drips so I will have to go back and swap them for another two hose and hope they are better finished.

Switching the TV off around midnight and getting ready to read a few chapters, I thought I heard it raining. But not the usual pitter-patter or thundery downpour, this sounded different. And a bit closer to home.

I left the bedroom and immediately realised it was coming from the bathroom- a water feed tube to the toilet had split and its best Songkran impression whereby it was emptying water in jet propulsion style up the wall.

And up to the ceiling and then down the walls and all over our tiny bathroom.

I switched the mains off, dried things of as best I could and got to sleep around 01:00...

Donald Trump has been rated as one of the worst presidents in the US since polls began nearly 75 years ago, with his predecessor Barack Obama one of the most popular, a survey found.

Mr Trump was ranked close to the “terrible” end of a scale of 1 to 10, landing the third spot ahead of only Lyndon Johnson and disgraced Richard Nixon at the bottom, an Ipsos survey found.

Mr Obama was rated 6.15 in the presidential popularity stakes – only beaten to top of the “excellent” end of the scale by Ronald Reagan (6.29) and John F. Kennedy (6.56) in the ranking of presidents who served since the early 1950s.

UKIP are facing a ‘serious financial crisis’ after being sued for making up a whole bunch of crap and then refusing to change their story in the face of actual evidence, in today’s moment of entertaining irony.

MEP Jane Collins made a series of unsupported claims and refused to retract them when presented with contrary proofs, resulting in UKIP facing an enormous and entirely avoidable bill which risks permanent harm – leaving some commentators to point out that this feels oddly familiar in some way.

The MEP was sued by the Labour party and lost – and the High Court ruled that her entire party must be held liable for the costs of her actions, in some curious way mirroring another reality where everyone gets to bear the costs of the entire party’s actions.

“It’s almost fractal, the way this pattern of just making up nonsense and roping other people into paying for the consequences repeats at a smaller and smaller scale,” said bemused onlooker Simon Williams.

“I’m half expecting her cat to shit on her rug and then somehow force next door pay for the bottle of bleach.”

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DISCLAIMER:
Nowt on here is original, new, innovative or fresh. Most of the stuff has been copied from other sources where people are cleverer, wittier and far more erudite than I.
There is no intent to plagiarise, rip off or ignore copyrighted material and if I have mistakenly done so, I apologise unreservedly. I do always try to add a link back to the original item, but should I forget to on occasion, this is not deliberate. I just have an appalling memory.
Please enjoy the Blog as it is intended- it is not meant to be malicious or hurtful; merely to amuse. However, if offence is taken over something, drop me a line and we can discuss any grievances. Similarly, if there are any criticisms or ideas on how to improve our offerings, just get in touch.
Love and hugs- karTER